A Democratic Socialist Blog

The Democrats:40 years of failure part 2

We believe as Democrats that health care is a right, not a privilege, and our health care system should put people before profits…Democrats will never falter in our generations-long fight to guarantee health coverage as a fundamental right for every American. As part of that guarantee, Americans should be able to access public coverage through Medicare or a public option. FDR

When I was a kid, my father was a Democrat. He cooked for the Paterson NJ Democrat Club. I met many politicians. It took me no time at all to find disappointment. At 11 I was already a Democratic socialist.

I remember one Dem saying to me, It is romantic to be in poverty, people are poor and happy. I looked at him as if he where a nut.

Then one Dem told me he wasn’t into the Kennedy’s and he thought there was not much difference between the Democrats and Republicans.

When I met Jimmy Tayoun, former convicted Philadelphia Democrat, he was as conservative as the day is long. Not into the Kennedy’s or liberalism.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

—The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

—The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

—The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

—The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

—The right of every family to a decent home;

—The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

—The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

—The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

The Clinton administration was not about Civil Rights, nor did it keep the promise of reducing the Pentagon and CIA. Welfare to work was a monster program that didn’t work.

The Democrats have a history of weak policies, like Pell Grants rather then Free Education, The AFHC instead of National Health Insurance. To many fake progessive program that are easily later pulled apart by Republicans.

There is one (horrifying) theme the Democratic Party has betrayed its natural constituency of labor, and is constantly trying (and succeeding) to outrun Republicans by doing more damage to the social structure than Republicans profess, thus stealing their thunder. “It has become Democratic thinking that the common people are at last being treated as they deserve to be.” They do it with “professionals”

The roots of this process to the Vietnam War era struggles, when the anti-war protests created a rift within the party between the pro-war blue collar labor and their unions and the anti-war students and intellectuals. The loss of the 1968 election to Richard Nixon sent the Democratic Party leadership on a long soul searching quest, in which the new social forces represented by professional and academic elites wrestled the control of the party from the labor unions and tied it to the socio-economic classes created by the “New Economy” – financial professionals and information technology specialists. This process was finalized by Clinton administration that performed one of the most spectacular turn-arounds in modern American history –the open abandonment of social protections favoring the poor and passage of the free trade agreement that eliminated large number of well-paying blue collar jobs (which the Clinton administration called “counter-scheduling”) coupled with deregulation of financial markets that opened the door for financial speculation, and massive subsidies for “innovation economy,” that is, information technology and big pharma.

In Obama’s first four years, he helped Women, gays, and some other stuff. The last four years he coasted.

Rather than solve problems and give use program that work and lasting, they sold out their Social Democratic platform, for a fake progressive platform. Now we have fallen behind and are number 1 in all the worse things in politics.

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One thought on “The Democrats:40 years of failure part 2”

The “new democrats” never had a socialdemocatic platform. and their progressivism was quite real.

“Do you know of a party that is not a progressive party? I don’t.
Do you know of any man or woman in this country who will
confess himself or herself a reactionary? I don’t.
Rockefeller is a progressive. So is Morgan.”
=Debs